I’ve been aware of ALPSP for as long as I’ve worked in scholarly publishing (cough… over twenty years.. cough). I remember going on fantastic training courses early in my career and when I started going to the annual conference I realised what a special organisation ALPSP is. Where else could I meet lots of people doing the same job as me, but in other societies? I learned so much, sharing experiences with people facing the same hurdles and challenges that I knew this was an organisation I wanted to give back to when the opportunity arose. 

I started off as a tutor on the Commissioning Content course, called in the night before a course when one of the tutors was unwell. I then joined the Education committee and when the opportunity arose to stand as a Director I jumped at the chance. I have been Chair of the Training Committee for the last three and a half years and it’s so rewarding helping to design training for others in the scholarly publishing community. 

In all the ALPSP committees I’ve been part of, I think the thing that has been most enjoyable is working with such a range of different people from our industry. Day-to-day I work in a very small organisation so it’s wonderful to be working with people at different organisations and doing very different things to me and my team. When I took part in the mentoring scheme as a mentor, I was paired with someone from a very different organisation to one I had ever worked in. I learned so much from my mentee and it was a real highlight of my career.   

There are so many opportunities to volunteer with ALPSP and I would wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who would like to do something a bit different from their day-to-day role, learn from others and give back to the community all at the same time. 

Sophia Anderton, Chief Executive, BJU International - Chair, Training Committee & ALPSP Director